Economic impacts of the Padma bridge in Bangladesh

The proposed Padma Bridge will be a multipurpose road-rail bridge across the Padma River. When
completed it will be the largest bridge in Bangladesh and the first fixed river-crossing for road traffic.
The under-construction Padma Bridge, due to be opened to traffic by the end of 2018 to serve as
gateway between the capital city Dhaka and 21 South-Western districts, is changing people's mindset
with hopes for rapid and vast socio-economic developments. Economists predict once the bridge
becomes operational, it is expected to push growth of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) up by
1.2 per cent and create employment opportunities for 10 million people.

The Padma Multipurpose Bridge will transform the lives of nearly 30 million people living in the
country's southwest region, promoting industrial and commercial activities and increasing economic and
employment opportunities, according to various studies and reviews on the major economic impact of
the bridge project. At least 30 million people, almost one-fifth of the countrys total population, will
directly benefit from the bridge, according to a study by the World Bank.

In a study, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said that the construction of the Padma Bridge would
significantly help improve various sectors of the economy nationally and regionally. "With the bridge,
capital inflow will increase, promoting industrial and commercial activity and increasing economic and
employment opportunities for the local population," the ADB said. Besides, the ADB said that the people
of the region would have better access to health-care facilities available in Dhaka while easier
communication would help to expand better education and training facilities, ensuring the availability of
the quality workers required for sustainable economic growth.

Each taka being invested in the Padma Bridge will produce about Tk 2 worth of social good, says a
research report. A US nonprofit think-tank, Copenhagen Consensus Center came up with this finding in
its research. According to the research calculation: Over the 31 years following completion of the
bridge, overall benefits to road users from these two sources are projected to be Tk 1.3 trillion
(Tk130,000crore).
Financial inclusion or inclusive financing is the delivery of financial services at affordable costs to
sections of disadvantaged and low-income segments of society. The term "financial inclusion" has
gained importance since the early 2000s, a result of findings about financial exclusion and its
direct correlation to poverty.

BANGLADESH has made a broad social commitment for inclusive, equitable and environmentally
sustainable socioeconomic growth 'leaving no-one behind', as espoused in the new sustainable
development goals. The government has accordingly led proactively with the country's progress in
sustainable development, with policy thrusts on massive digitization to support financial inclusion and
inclusive growth. Bangladesh Bank, the country's central bank, is supporting the government's efforts
with its own initiatives by promoting financial inclusion and environmentally sustainable financing.

Some of the inclusive financial products are -

Ten-taka (12 cents) bank accounts for millions of farmers and social safety net beneficiaries (The
central bank approved a Tk 200 crore refinancing scheme to provide loans to Tk 10 account holders . As
of September this year, the number of Tk 10 account holderswho are mostly farmers, garment
workers, city corporation cleaning workers, freedom fighters and social safety net beneficiariesstood
at around 1.87 crore. )

Bank-led mobile banking (Mobile banking in Bangladesh continues to grow fast, scaling a new
height last year with 53 percent growth year-on-year.
In 2015, the industry saw Tk 157,773.31 crore in transactions through mobile phones -- the
amount being more than half the country's national budget, according to a report of Bangladesh
Bank. In 2014, the mobile banking industry saw Tk 103,155.37 crore in transactions. The
average monthly transactions made through mobile phones stood at more than Tk 13,147.77
crore last year, rising from Tk 8,596.28 crore in 2014.)

School banking (at the end of December last year, there were 133,000 accounts in 45 banks
with a total deposit of Tk 9,605 million. The number of such accounts rose to 224,719 in 46
banks until June this year, showing a deposit of Tk 1.28 billion. Currently, the average savings in
these accounts work out to about Tk 5,716. )

SME loans for women entrepreneurs (The central bank has launched target-based credit
activities for banks. Between 2010 and 2015, about 18.35 lakh SMEs got loans to the tune of
BDT 262,340 crore. Loans of nearly BDT 100,000 crore are going to SMEs every year. BB has
launched a number of refinancing schemes involving BDT 2,100 crore from its own fund as well
as funds from development partners. )
"SMEs in economy of Bangladesh/Role of SMEs/Status of SMEs in BD"

ACCORDING to the National Industrial Policy 2010, any firm employing more
than 10 but less than 25 workers is called a micro-enterprise. If the number
of workers employed remains between 25 to 99, the enterprise is identified
as small. A medium enterprise employs 100 to 249 workers in Bangladesh.
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are expected to play a pivotal role in
achieving the goals of poverty alleviation as envisaged in the current
development paradigm.

SMALL and medium enterprises (SMEs) are treated as the engines of growth
and drivers of innovation worldwide. They play a significant role in driving
economic growth and generating jobs.

In Bangladesh, the sector is actually changing the face of the economy.

SMEs are playing a vital role for the country's accelerated industrialization
and economic growth, employment generation and reducing poverty. SMEs
now occupy an important position in the national economy. According to the
available information provided by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, They
account for about 45 percent of manufacturing value addition, about 80
percent of industrial employment, about 90 percent of total industrial units
and about 25 percent of the labor force. Their total contribution to export
earnings varies from 75 percent to 80 percent. The industrial sector makes
up 31 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP), most of which
is coming from SMEs. The total number of SMEs in Bangladesh is estimated
to be 79,754 establishments. Of them, 93.6 percent are small and 6.4
percent are medium. The 2003 Private Sector Survey estimated that there
are about 6 million micro, small and medium enterprises, with fewer than
100 employees. About 60 to 65 percent of all SMEs are located outside the
metropolitan areas of Dhaka and Chittagong. The country's SME sector has
created 15 lakh jobs between 2009 and June 2014. Now, private and foreign
banks disburse half of all farm loans and a third of these are going to SMEs.
Central banks role - The central bank has been at the forefront of SME
development in Bangladesh.

The government has rightly identified SMEs as the priority sector for
transforming Bangladesh into a middle-income country. In line with
government's thrust, BB has been instrumental in designing and
implementing SME sector development initiatives as part of its development
financing agenda.
BB has shown the world that a central bank can successfully manage its
traditional role of monetary authority while playing the complementary role
of development driver. BB has already become the role model in SME
financing in the international arena within a span of only five years. Its
initiatives are being studied by other central banks of the world. The central
bank is regularly receiving delegates from other central banks who are
looking at the country's success stories.
The central bank has launched target-based credit activities for banks.
Between 2010 and 2015, about 18.35 lakh SMEs got loans to the tune of
BDT 262,340 crore. Loans of nearly BDT 100,000 crore are going to SMEs
every year. BB has launched a number of refinancing schemes involving BDT
2,100 crore from its own fund as well as funds from development partners.

SMEs in Bangladesh should see whether they could be part of this new
phenomenon. It is worth noting that SMEs that invest in technology and
those with high labor productivity are more likely to be part of the GVC
(global value chains) . Bangladesh needs to maximize the benefits derived
from the SME sector, as this sector plays a pivotal role in promoting and
sustaining the industrial as well as overall economic growth.

DIGITAL BANGLADESH

Digital Bangladesh means she will be an e-state. The activities of

governance, commerce, education, agriculture etc. will be powered by
computer and internet. Bangladesh has a goal of achieving Digital
Bangladesh in 2021. The goal of establishing such digital country would
bring success in the ICT (Information Communication-Technology) sector
which cannot be ignored this 21st century.

Digital Bangladesh vision has four key priorities

(a) developing human resources ready for the 21st century; (b) connecting
citizens in ways most meaningful to them; (c) taking services to citizens
doorsteps; and, (d) Making the private sector and market more productive
and competitive through the use of digital technology.

Digital Bangladesh is one of the nation's dreams, and so special emphasis is

given on the application of digital technologies to realize Vision 2021, which
we commonly call Digital Bangladesh. By 2021, after 50 years of
independence, our goal is to be a middle-income country with peace,
prosperity and dignity. The government of Bangladesh implemented a large
number of projects relating to digital technologies and a number of these are
already underway. National ICT Policy-2009 was developed with a view to
achieve middle-income status of the nation by 2021 and developed status by
2041.
According to the National ICT Policy-2009, short-term, mid-term and long-
term plans consisting of 306 action plans have been identified for the
realization of Vision 2021

In spite of several bottlenecks and limitations, works are in progress for the
realization of Digital Bangladesh. Several projects for digitalization have
been completed and a big number of projects are under progress. The nation
now, with over 12 crore mobile subscribers and 4.3 crore Internet
subscribers, enjoys the fruits of digitization in numerous areas of activities.
The ultimate objective is to make more and more services available at the
doorsteps of the people with increased digitization where possible.

PMO is leading the Digital Bangladesh Vision 2021 agenda of the

government facilitated bya2i with technical assistance from the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United States Agency for
International Development (USAID). Our effort will focus specifically on
achieving greater financial inclusion through our more than 5,000 Digital
Centres that were established in all rural and urban local government
institutions around the country, said Principal Secretary of the Prime
Ministers Office (PMO) and Chair of the Steering Committee for Access to
Information Programme (a2i).

These Centers already provide an average of 4.5 million underserved

citizens with access every month to a wide array of more than 60 digital
services. By mandating that one of the two entrepreneurs managing these
Digital Centers is a woman, we ensure a more gender-sensitive service
delivery environment.

It is necessary to mention that in the short run "Digital Bangladesh" aims at

E-Governance and service delivery through utilizing ICT. But the vision
"Digital Bangladesh" encompasses the whole arena of a knowledge based
Digital Economy. Bangladesh can't afford to achieve that goal in the short
and medium run. The thinkers, technocrats and IT experts have to focus on
the short run issues and measures the present Government should
undertake to digitalize Bangladesh. It is important to start digitalizing
service delivery organs like Police, City corporation, Land Department, Tax
Department, PDB, Water supply, Gas and other authorities also including
sectors like Banking, Insurance, Customs, Tax Collection. Digitalized
institutions like Bangladesh Bank, NBR, PSC, UGC, EC, ACC and other vital
institution to go a step ahead towards Good Governance.

Our government must take proactive steps to take technology to rural

citizens. However our dream towards digital Bangladesh has a long way to
go. Digitalization of Bangladesh will depend how best the Government can
leverage the power of ICT to increase the access to information of its
population.
 Private sector investment: Status and suggestions

The countrys economic growth and development strongly depends on

private sector. Private sector plays a huge role in improving the living
standards of people. The private investment has been stagnant for past few
years in BD.

The figure shows the current scenario of the Private sector investment in
Bangladesh. The major reasons for the stagnant position in private sector
invests are higher interest rate of bank loan, political unrest, lack of
sufficient electricity, gas , sustainable infrastructure, lack of good
governance, lack of transparency in various field etc.

By overcoming these pitfalls the next budget is likely to envisage a huge

private sector investment in the economy, a gap of above Tk 80,000 crore or
nearly 22 per cent growth from the poor investment made in the outgoing
financial year. It will raise the contribution of private sector investment to
gross domestic product to 23.3 per cent in the next 2016-17 financial year
against 21.78 per cent in the revised estimate for the outgoing 2015-16
financial year, officials concerned said.

The national economy seems to be trapped under a 6.0 per cent growth due
mainly to lack of investment. Investment is not accelerating due to lack of
proper policy and investment promotion strategies, Debapriya
Bhattacharya, a distinguished fellow of Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD), told
The New Nation on recently . He said, Bangladesh targets a GDP growth of 8
per cent in its Seventh Five Year Plan. If the country wants to achieve the
target, the share of investment in value needs to be accelerated to 32.5 per
cent from current 28 per cent. We cannot overcome such sluggish
investment scenario unless investors are being facilitated by planned way. A
strategic plan with various fiscal incentives for the investors is a must to
gear up the investment scenario further, he noted. Debapriya Bhattacharya
further said the investors need supportive policies along with congenial
political environment for the security and return of their investment.

Former Bangladesh Bank governor Mohammed Farashuddin at a workshop of

Economic Reporters Forum in the capital said that the responsibility rested
with the government to help boost private sector investment, as the issue
required pro-business and investment-minded economic policies. He insisted
on lowering interest rates by the private sector banks so that investors could
feel encouraged to park their fund to propel growth in the private sector
business and subsequently contribute to the growth of the national
economy.
The Role of Banking Sector in the Economic Development of Bangladesh

Banks are mainstream of the financial system of a country. Banking system

must be robust, resilent and sound for efficient inter-mediation of financial
resources. Lack of any one or all these prerequisites would not bring only
disaster for the country also cost the real sector. Our government has taken
various types of reform programs time to time making banking system more
effective so that positive impact of banking system on our everyday life in
economic activities can be more realized.

Bank have played a vital role in economy by providing credit for performing
economic activities and at the sometime conglomerate the surplus capital
from general public through different types of depository incentives. Hence
we discuss the major sectors of economy like agriculture, industry,
business mentioned by Bangladesh Bank and how much wells banks
perform these sectors.

Agriculture is the main sector of our economy. According to the new GDP
measurement system, it provides about 22 percent of our GDP. Though the
total amount of credit increases day by day, the portion of credit has
decreased in agriculture, fishery and foresty sector whether it has reduced
into half at percent. The rescue of agriculture revenue is hearty than others
sectors and this credit directly affects the agricultural production. At present
44 private and foreign commercial banks have to continue their activities.
They contain collectively TK 20,365 crore as a deposit which is 35 percent
of total credit. But Unfortunately, they don't give any single coin to
agriculture sector, as a credit.

Industrial sector acts as a main sector of GDP in the developed countries

but unfortunately, this sector performance is very weak in our country and
participation of GDP in this sector is 17.79 percent. This sector gets the
highest credit from commercial banks.

Business sector has become major role playing sector in our economy.
Now-a-days almost 14.47 percent of GDP comes from merchandise sector,
which is lucid from different statistical data. In 1981, One reason of gets
more credit in business sector is that the probability of default loan is
comparatively low vis-a-vis other sectors. But now-a-days, default culture
has also increased in trading sector. Only garments artistry takes on
prominent credit is TK 786 crore and TK 878 crore respectively provided by
private and national commercial banks provide 24 percent of total credit in
business sector and it is only 14.31 percent in case of foreign banks.

Bank is one of the main means of government by which government can

implement different types of step for eradicating poverty. As the branches
of bank are available everywhere from downtown area to remotest rural
area government uses this channel to provide any financial benefit quickly.
Some projects are run by bank with the help of government to wipe-out
poverty are as follows:

1.Rural poor co-operative project in greater Rajshahi, Kustia and Jessore

area with the help of Sonali Bank.

2.Self-reliance loan project through the self-reliance Bangladesh and

financed by Sonali Bank.

3.Small and landless farmers development project by Janata Bank. Small

and marginal farming.

Foreign Commercial Banks have provided 39.9 percent of total credit in

other sectors. In this time National Commercial Banks and PCB's provided
7.15 percent of their total credit and Private Commercial Banks provided
10.21 percent of total credit in other sectors.Though banking sector is the
life-blood of our financial system, functional arena of bank is rather narrow
than wide range and performance of handsome banks is not quite good.
Bangladesh government has taken different types of reform according to
demand of era, but this types of reform don't make our banking system
international standard. But we are not hopeless rather by taking steps we
will reach our ambitious target.
 Sustainable Development Goals and Bangladesh
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) refers to an agreement of the United
Nations Conference on sustainable development to develop a set of future
international development goals. On 25th September of 2015 -leaders of 193
countries of the world unanimously adopted the post-2015 international
development agenda for the period of 2015-2030. SDGs is the framework for g-
lobal development after the terminal year (2015) of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). With 17 goals and 169 targets SDGs represents a bold new agenda
to end poverty, fight inequality, tackle the adverse effects of climate change and
ensure a sustainable future for all.

Apart from the simple fact that SDGs contain a much larger number of goals
covering a broader set of issues compared to MDGs and hence make the agenda
more challenging, there are a number of significant differences between the two.

SDGs are meant for all countries not just for developing countries.

A look at some of the goals and targets of SDGs -- especially those relating
to growth, employment, education, health, indicates an emphasis on
qualitative aspects of development;
As for fighting poverty, in addition to the income dimension, non-income
dimensions are also emphasised;

In a few instances, quantitative targets are specified for least-developed

countries (LDCs).

Bangladesh Context
In taking on SDGs, Bangladesh will have the opportunity to draw strength from
being a star performer of the MDGs. Bangladeshs achievements in the MDG era
are as follows:

Bangladesh has made a considerable achievement by reducing the number of

people living in extreme poverty
The issue of gender parity in primary schools has been met
 In terms of reducing the rate of children dying before their 5th birthday by
more than half since 1990, we have achieved this way before 2015
Maternal mortality has taken a sharp dive while, at the same time,
communicable diseases have been somewhat halted and deaths as a result
have been averted
In terms of access to improved drinking water, sanitary latrines, and use of
digital media, we as a developing country are on track compared to other
developed nations

Bangladesh has fixed 47 targets in various 9 sector for coming SDGs proposal. The
SDGs targets including child-right establish in the due time and child-labor reduce
half, violence against women reduce 75 percent, child dropout being 10 percent
by creating 100 percent education facility, Allocation 20 percent for technical and
training sector out of total allocation of the education sector, Poverty eradication,
education and health issues, child mortality and metarnal mortality, gender
equality etc.

The key challenges for Bangladesh for implementing the SDGs as

1. Integration in the national planning process

2. Financial and non-financial resources
3. Institutional mechanism for implementation
4. Data for Monitoring
5. Participation and accountability

Attainment of the SDGs would require a strong and effective institutional

mechanism involving all stakeholders including public representatives across the
country, government and the bureaucracy, private sector, civil society, knowledge
community, and development partners.
ShareShare Sus tainable Develop ment Goals (SDGs ) and Bangl
 Financial Inclusion
BANGLADESH has made a broad social commitment for inclusive, equitable and
environmentally sustainable socioeconomic growth 'leaving no-one behind', as
espoused in the new sustainable development goals. The government has accordingly
led pro actively with the country's progress in sustainable development, with policy
thrusts on massive digitisation to support financial inclusion and inclusive growth,
alongside mitigation and adaptation response to climate change threats.

Despite having world economic shock in the recent past, Bangladesh has maintained a
stable performance on macroeconomic indicators by registering a growth rate of more
than 6 percent for the last few years. Bangladesh has targeted the new trajectory of 7
percent plus growth from the current fiscal year. Major macroeconomic indicators such
as inflation, exports, remittances and fiscal position remained benign over the last
decade.

Along with sound macroeconomic fundamentals, performance on the social indicators

has been quite commendable, particularly in
* poverty alleviation,
* education,
*income and gender equality,
*adaptation to climate change,
*reduction of infant and maternal mortality
*and women's empowerment. With steady economic and social performance,
Bangladesh has proudly joined the (lower) middle income group. The country is
proceeding steadfastly to attain the upper-middle income status in the coming decade
or so.

With all these policies in mind, to reap the benefit of a digitised economy, Bangladesh
has introduced:
*developed and implemented broad-based networking,
*Union Information
*and Service Centre, Enterprise Resource Planning,
*Open Data Initiatives,
* Enterprise Data Warehouse,
*highly interactive website for government entities, e-tendering, e-education, e-learning
and various apps to provide optimum opportunities to citizens.

Bangladesh Bank, the country's central bank, is supporting the government's efforts
with its own initiatives by promoting financial inclusion and environmentally sustainable
financing. In recent years, the core banking solution for the central bank and
commercial banks, Credit Information Bureau's online services, electronic fund transfer,
cheque imaging and truncation based automated clearing, and national payment switch
for interoperability of all plastic card-based services have been set up. Mobile financial
services have become the key tool of financial inclusion initiatives.

Moreover, in most cases, money is being channelled from urban to rural areas, helping
the rural economy. After shaping up all these retail channels, Bangladesh has recently
launched real-time gross settlement or RTGS for high value payment. Under the
present system, high-value interbank payments are done on the same day. But under
RTGS, interbank high-value claims and obligations will be settled instantly.

The cumulative outcome of these steps is quick service and skill development in the
financial sector, which has now been into a single thread. Moreover, transparency in the
financial transaction has also been increasing steadily. A new dimension has also been
added to the supervisory framework to combat corruption. All these concerted efforts to
digitise the country have ensured rapid, transparent, decentralised and qualitative
customer services.

For the last few years, Bangladesh has been trying to ensure sustainable growth
through alleviating poverty by reaching out to a large number of people at the bottom of
the pyramid using different development tools. In connection to these broad objectives,
Bangladesh Bank has adopted diverse initiatives to accelerate the pace of financial
inclusion through formulating and implementing inclusive policy measures. Bangladesh
Bank has issued different circulars regarding the opening of no-frills accounts for
underserved segments such as farmers, freedom fighters, government subsidy-holders,
city corporation cleaners, garment workers, physically challenged people, small life
insurance holders, natural disaster affected people, students and street children after
completing simplified KYC formalities, agent banking, and disbursement of loans under
refinance schemes.

To keep pace with those visions, need-based regulations have been formulated for
agriculture, SME, sustainable banking and other environment friendly and productive
sectors. The unique opportunity of opening no-frills bank accounts is actively serving as
a channel to disburse safety net programmes funds or other allowances from
government, collect utility bills, provide salaries, collect remittances, make payments on
behalf of customers, and disburse adequate credit including easy agricultural loans from
refinancing schemes. These accounts also encourage the users to enter the legal
financial system and develop a habit of saving.
 Cyber crime in financial sectors
The use of internet has become the part and parcel of every educated person in this world. It has
opened the gates to the information superhighway connecting the rest of the world to whole a lot
of information and to all corners of the world at once.

With a global population of almost 7.5 billion and an Internet population of 42%, solving
cybercrime is one of the worlds current digital challenges. Many times people may be confused
as to the classification of what constitutes cyber crime. Although this classification is somewhat
confusing, due to lack of tangible nature, cyber crime refers to any illegal action that is
committed through an electronic-based medium or targets a computer-based platform.

Basically, Cybercrime is defined as a crime in which a computer is the object of the crime
(hacking, spamming) or is used as a tool to commit an offense .Cybercriminals may use
computer technology to access personal information, business trade secrets, or use the Internet
for exploitive or malicious purposes. Criminals can also use computers for communication and
document or data storage. Criminals who perform these illegal activities are often referred to as
hackers.

Common types of cybercrime include online bank information theft, identity theft, online
predatory crimes and unauthorized computer access. More serious crimes like cyber terrorism
are also of significant concern.

Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of activities, but these can generally be broken into two
categories:

1. Crimes that target computer networks or devices. These types of crimes include viruses and
denial-of-service (DoS) attacks.
2 Crimes that use computer networks to advance other criminal activities. These types of crimes
include cyber stalking and fraud or identity theft.

Cybercrime does not know the border. The same technology that brings people of the world
closer together has a darker side, making it easier for criminal or malicious elements to steal,
destroy, corrupt, defraud and exploit.

The theft of $101 million from the reserves of the Bangladesh Bank has proved the vulnerability
of financial institutions to cyber crime syndicates. This incident challenges the ability of existing
mechanisms in preventing such incidents. Besides, the theft highlights the need for strengthening
the international cooperation in tackling cyber crime.

In February 2016, the hackers accessed Bangladesh central banks transfer codes and sent
payment transfer requests worth $1 billon to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They
requested the funds of Bangladesh be transferred to a bank in the Philippines. The attempt could
not be fulfilled in totality following a typo that alerted one of the routing banks and transaction
was stopped. The hackers misspelled the name of the non-profit organisation in Sri Lanka
against which the transfer was requested. But the hackers were successful in siphoning $81
million in the initial four transactions.

The theft of such a large amount from national reserves astonished many in Bangladesh and
abroad. Doubts are being expressed about the countrys preparedness to protect its financial
infrastructure, which is undergoing digitisation.

Cause for worry

The rising incidents of cyber frauds in the financial sector have become a cause of worry . Last
year, Taka 1 crore was withdrawn from ATMs of several banks by fraudsters. The government
claims that the present fraud took place due to management failure of the payment system and
the IT department.

Repetition of such incidents will affect the economy. Protecting financial sectors from future
cyber crimes is need of the hour. Bangladesh has made significant economic growth in past few
years; the country had maintained more than 6 per cent growth in the past 10 years.

Given the rising incidents of cyber crimes, there is urgent need for upgrading the countrys
financial infrastructure offering services over cyber space. The government has also formulated a
cyber security law. To investigate the case, the government has formed an enquiry commission.
 Rohingya issue in Bangladesh
Rohingyas are probably one of the only ethnic groups in the world whose existence is denied
despite their presence.They are one of the 136 ethnic groups in Myanmar had been most widely
used as a political Pawn in the country.

Rohingyas constitute 1% of total population and 4% of the Arakhan state population of

Myanmar. Although they have become pawns in the game of colonial and postcolonial politics.
Now around 32000 registered Rohingyas are living in 2 refugee camp in Ukhia aand Teknaf.The
Bangladesh government has introduced free education upto class 6,vocational skill
training,computer training and primary and secondary healthcare to prepare them for better life
when they voluntarily return to their Homeland. Besides, 3-5 lakhs undocumented Rohingyas are
staying in different parts of Bangladesh.

Refugee International estimates that 29000 Rohingya live in official refugee camps in
Bangladesh, while another 20000 are in unofficial camps, read the article like it categorically
denied legal protections and humanitarian assistance. Although the UNHCR has expressed its
willingness to help the Bangladeshi government cover the cost of additional services and
registering refugees. Bangladesh refuses to act.The UNHCR and other internal NGOs have
offered numerous proposal for ways to improve the situation, but the government continues to
drag its feet.

Why the Bangladesh, the homeland of Muslim Bengali, reluctant to take on more Muslim
Rohingya refugees? An obvious answer it would seem, is Bangladesh own poverty and
economical framework policy. However the real explanation is more complex.Bangladesh has
proven to be recalcitrant on the Rohingya issues for 2 closely interwined reasons such as
Governmental incapacity and a complex Bangladesh and Myanmar borders.

There are very tangible and viable steps that Bangladesh can pursue to alleviate the dire plight of
the rohingyas.

Firstly, Bangladesh trying to resolve the growing Rohingya crisis using international channels

Secondly, seeking support from United Nations and UNHCR to handle the situation.

Then,To formulate a well migrant policy comply with international standards.

Finally, to keep pressuring Myanmar government through some ASEAN member countries and
International NGOs. In conclusion, Bangladesh is a peaceful country since the emergence of
Bangladesh.She has been living in peaceful co-existence. Her foreign policy is Friendship to all
but malice to none. The Rohingya from Myanmar has become a major problem for Bangladesh.
The rohingya are being tryannized by the Myanmar government for which they have entered into
Bangladesh as a political victim and as a refugee.